Windows Defender identified Chromium, Electron apps as Hive Ransomware

Microsoft released a Windows Defender update to fix a problem that caused Defender antivirus to identify Chromium, Electron, as malware

Microsoft released a Windows Defender update to fix a problem that caused Defender antivirus software to identify the app based on the Chromium browser engine or the Electron JavaScript framework as malware.

Multiple users reported to the tech giant that they have received a “win32/hive.zy” removal notification every time they run applications like Google’s Chrome browser, Whatsapp, Discord or Spotify,

This means that the Defender antivirus software was confusing the above apps as instances of the infamous Hive ransomware.

Microsoft addressed the issue with the release of Version: 1.373.1537.0 on September 4, 2022.

It has already happened in the past that the popular antivirus software has identified Chrome as a malicious code, the website The Register reported a similar problem in 2011.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Windows Defender)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.